Interviews
An Interview with Gore Vidal
Barnes & Noble.com: How difficult was it to get this book published?
Gore Vidal: Very easy. But it was difficult in the post-9/11 hysteria to get a newspaper to publish a piece suggesting that both Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden (if either did what we have said he did) might have had what they considered, rightly or wrongly, good reasons for what they did. What kept my "Black Tuesday" piece from publication in the U.S. or U.K. press was the list that I give of several hundred unilateral military strikes we had made at Second and Third World countries in the last 50 years. As a result, we are widely hated both abroad and at home (by the so-called "patriot movement"). The sort of public domain information that I was releasing was like a clove of garlic to Dracula.
B&N.com: What's the basic message you're trying to get across?
GV: That the first law of physics has not been annulled; there is no action without reaction. You cannot attack other countries because they might one day prove hostile, or go Communist, or sell us drugs, and then not expect them to strike back. That is what a Moslem gang did on 9/11. They sent out a list of particulars as to why they did this, but our media and educational system are dedicated to never explaining to us why things happen other than "We are Good, they are Evil." This is simple-minded to the point of lunacy.
B&N.com: You criticize George W. Bush for his use of the word "evil" to categorize America's enemies. Many people would agree with that assessment, considering what they saw on 9/11. What's wrong with using that word?
GV: The Moslem response to our activities in the Middle East was indeed evil, just as our various strikes at them in a half dozen countries were also evil. Evil begets evil. What's wrong with that notion?
B&N.com: What do you think of his recent "axis of evil" comment?
GV: A mindless phrase. I was in World War II (my current critics are, for the most part, what we called "draft dodgers" back then, including "W"). Iran and Iraq are old enemies and form no axis. North Korea has nothing to do with either of them and has a good deal to do with its "enemy" South Korea (which was horrified by Bush's primitive war dance in front of Congress).
B&N.com: Do you think the American people will ever know the full story behind 9/11?
GV: Of course not. When I was in the Pacific, none of us could figure out why the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor. As I explain in my novel The Golden Age, we now know it was due to deliberate provocations by a hero (to me), FDR, in 1940. Eighty percent of the American people didn't want to fight Hitler, but FDR did -- he set in motion provocations that ended in their attack on Pearl Harbor. Our history books are silent, as always, as to why he did this. No one has yet confided to us why we were in Vietnam. The war's architect, Robert McNamara, not long ago confessed that he hadn't a clue. Why did we invade Panama and kidnap, try, and imprison Noriega? We said he was the master of all drug traffic. But the flow of drugs continues. So it goes.
B&N.com: Democrats are starting to criticize Bush on his handling of the war. How do you think a President Al Gore would have handled things?
GV: Sad to say, I don't think Prince Albert would have been much different from Bush. He might, however, have a better knowledge of what we have done to antagonize other nations and so be on his guard. He certainly would have punished the CIA and FBI for negligence in not warning us.
B&N.com: You had a correspondence with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. What was your take on him?
GV: Very well read in political and constitutional history. He had gone to Waco, where the FBI was breaking every law in the book by using army weapons and methods against civilians (in defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act). This is best described in This Is Not an Assault by D. T. Hardy and Rex Kimball. McVeigh read a piece I wrote on the shredding of the Bill of Rights and started to write me. I include his letters, and my original piece, in the book.
B&N.com: Where do you think the war is headed?
GV: First, it is not a war because Bush says it is. A war can only happen between nations, and nothing is war for Americans until Congress has declared it -- which, thus far, has not happened. We should have gone after Al Queda the way that Italy went after the Mafia. Infiltration, bribes, arrests. It was never suggested that Italy bomb the city of Palermo, a Mafia center. But we bombed most of the Afghan cities, killing innocent people and harming very few of those Arabs who served Osama.
B&N.com: Do you think there will come a time when "the average American" will be more interested in a peaceful solution to the current crisis than a military one?
GV: I've never met an "average American," nor has anyone else. I do know the power of media to dis-inform and to demonize those the current government hates for reasons good or bad (wiretaps reveal that Nixon spent most of his time conspiring against his enemies and telling lies to the public). Americans, if one must generalize, believe in our minding our own business. We were against entry in WWI and WWII. Harry Truman finessed us into the Korean War, wrapped in a UN police action flag. Truman secretly backed South Vietnam. Eisenhower confessed that we could not allow the Vietnamese to hold nationwide elections because the Communists would win. Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all kept the war fires burning, and we still don't know why it was fought. Domino effect? Thailand, a next-door neighbor, got rid of its Communists and continued happily as a Buddhist monarchy. Our attempts to wreck them were successfully resisted.
B&N.com: Will you be writing any further books on the current military crisis?
GV: If needed.
